About Author Doug Kari
Doug Kari, True Crime Author
Lying in a shallow grave to imagine the carnage that occurred there. Scouring a remote corner of Death Valley to discover a key clue in a missing person case. Venturing into Mexico to bring Hannah Kobayashi, the subject of an international search, back to the United States.
Doug Kari investigates true crime and missing person cases firsthand and in depth.
One reviewer called Doug’s first book, The Berman Murders, “a well-researched look at journalistic obsession.” He drew nationwide coverage for his work in Hannah’s case. He wrote groundbreaking news stories about the Karlie Gusé missing person case and the murder of Baby Emmanuel.
A confirmed adventurer who follows wherever his stories may lead, Doug has walked though migrant camps in Mexico and driven jeep roads into remote villages in the Marquesas Islands.
An English major at U.C. Berkeley, Doug received his law degree from U.C. Law San Francisco. His stories have run in LA Weekly, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Long Beach Post, the LA Times, the San Francisco Daily Journal, and other respected outlets.
The Story Behind The Stories
Stories about the modern-day Wild West have been a lifelong passion, instilled by my grandmother Dale King. After grandpa died, she moved into a cabin in Fairview Valley, an expanse of high desert located northeast of Victorville, California.
Back then, Fairview Valley was populated by coyotes, jackrabbits, and rattlesnakes. Grandma witched a well for drinking water, heated her cabin with a potbelly stove, and used kerosene lanterns for light. At night she’d place a pair of lanterns on her kitchen table and read western novels by Louis L’Amour.
Come morning, grandma would strap on a Joslyn .44 revolver, climb into her Toyota Landcruiser, and spend her days roaming the backcountry. Later, when she began staking mining claims and hauling around ore samples, she graduated to a Ford F-250 four-wheel-drive pickup truck.
Along the way, grandma met old-timers who told stories about vanished travelers and hidden treasures. Back then the western deserts – Mojave, Sonora, and Great Basin – were untamed regions, and they still are in many respects. There’s sublime beauty and resonating silence, but also blazing sun, dangerous roads, and menacing characters.
As a teenager I began following in grandma’s footsteps, exploring Death Valley, Joshua Tree, parts of Nevada and Arizona, and borderlands to the south. I listened to grandma’s tales and became an avid reader of Desert Magazine, which recounted many of the region’s legends and mysteries.
In the 1980’s I became involved in desert conservation and co-founded the wilderness group Desert Survivors. Speaking at public hearings and testifying before Congress made me think about applying to law school. Even before I passed the bar exam, I began doing pro bono legal work to protect the region I loved.
In 2014, a story I wrote for Ars Technica, about an eBay bookseller who won a landmark Supreme Court case, drew 250,000 views. After that I delved into true crime and wrote a cover story for LA Weekly about the Berman murders.
Since then, I’ve reported on stories ranging from the cartel’s slaughter of Mormon moms and kids in northern Mexico, to the baffling disappearance of a Vietnam veteran in Death Valley National Park.
Articles By Doug
DA didn’t oppose bail in Baby Emmanuel case
The Riverside County District Attorney recently blasted a local judge for failing to lock up a man before he was arrested on suspicion of killing his 7-month-old son, but court records show the DA’s office also acquiesced to him walking free even after he allegedly violated his probation in a prior child abuse case.
Palm Springs bombing suspect may have had suicide pact
Guy Edward Bartkus, the deceased “anti-life” suspect in the bombing of a Palm Springs fertility clinic on Saturday, may have made a suicide pact with a Washington woman who died last month after allegedly asking her boyfriend to shoot her.
Hannah Kobayashi’s family searches for answers
The family of Hannah Kobayashi, the Maui woman who sparked a broad search after going missing from Los Angeles, is looking for answers after law enforcement authorities announced yesterday that she voluntarily crossed the border into Mexico.
Missing teen’s case leads from California to Nevada
Five years after teenager Karlie Gusé disappeared from alongside U.S. Highway 6 in eastern California, authorities are searching for clues in Tonopah. Karlie, then 16, went missing on Oct. 13, 2018, in Chalfant Valley, California, about 30 miles south of the Nevada state line.
Suspect in Nevada teen’s kidnapping, killing dies by suicide in jail
YERINGTON — Troy Driver, the man accused of abducting an 18-year-old woman from a Walmart parking lot in Fernley and killing her at a remote mine site, died by suicide Sunday in his jail cell. Deputies assigned to the Lyon County jail discovered Driver, 43, unresponsive in his maximum-security cell during a routine check at 6:17 p.m. on Sunday.
Death Valley mystery: New clue in case of missing veteran
SALINE VALLEY, Calif. — A new clue has surfaced in the case of a Vietnam veteran who went missing nearly two years ago in Death Valley National Park. Stuart Jeffries, who was helping me investigate the story, discovered a sandal last week about 1,000 feet from where Bob Wildoner’s pickup truck was found abandoned in May 2021.